


Three For Playing

by perletwo



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:15:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perletwo/pseuds/perletwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for this norsekink prompt: <i><a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/6119.html?thread=10876135#t10876135">tl;dr: Coulson gets kittenfied and witnesses Clint's many facets.</a></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The cat has nine lives: three for playing, three for straying, three for staying. _\- English Proverb_
> 
> Our character is what God and cats know of us. _\- attributed to Thomas Paine_

Phil woke gradually from his late-afternoon nap, stretched his front legs and arched his spine, then hunched forward and stretched his back legs. His whiskers twitched, and he assessed his state of being.

_Hungry._

He padded over to the open door of the bungalow, pawed it open further and slid gracefully out to the walkway, eyes roving from side to side as he went along. A tiny flash of movement under a bush caused his eyes to sharpen, and he locked on and _pounced._

One small white mouse later, Phil emerged from the bushes with the hunger satisfied. He walked on a few more yards and stopped to contemplate the concrete birdbath in a neighboring yard.

_Thirsty._

He studied the birdbath, bunched the muscles around his haunches, and leapt to balance on the edge of the bowl. He lapped delicately at the water, batted a paw at his reflection. Something was off there, something not right, but...

The wind shifted, and his head lifted to sniff. Yes. Know that scent. Friend.

_Lonely._

He balanced carefully and launched himself back to the ground, stalking along with his nose in the air, following the scent.

*********

Clint Barton heard a heavy thump at his bungalow door, followed by a strangled yowl. The door thumped again, and with a sigh he set his beer down on the coffee table, got up from the sofa and opened the door. "What the -"

A gray-and-black blur streaked in around the door and his ankles. It flew through the air and landed on the arm of the sofa, which it kneaded with eager paws.

"Oh, c’mon now. No. Down." He stalked over to the sofa, peered down at the tabby kitten. "Get down from there. Now." He lifted a hand, swatted at the air near the kitten’s face. It drew its head and neck back in perfect time with the movement of his hand, and, eyes brightened, raised a paw to swat back. It mewed happily, and Clint groaned.

"You can’t stay here, cat." As if it understood, it hunkered down onto the sofa arm, yowled and dug its claws in, ears and tail twitching.

Clint rubbed a hand through his hair. "What’m I gonna do with you?" He closed the door and sat down beside the cat, which butted its head against his shoulder and gave a low-pitched meow. It walked gingerly along the back of the sofa and dropped onto the seat next to Clint, flopped down and lolled its head against his thigh. Clint let his hand rest on the cat’s side and rubbed it absently, and it purred like an engine.

*********

When he felt Clint relax beside him, Phil lifted his head and looked around. Had he been in here before? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t keep his thoughts together with any coherence under the onslaught of sensory input.

_Big. Warm. Soft light. Friend smell. New smells._

He rose, stepped carefully onto the coffee table, circled and nosed at the papers and magazines, then sniffed at the beer bottle.

"Hey!" Clint lifted his head and focused on the cat. "C’mon. You don’t want that."

Phil’s nose wrinkled. Clint’s saliva was on the neck of the bottle and that smelled nice, but the barley-yeast-mash-sour-alcohol tang from inside was drowning it out. Clint reached for the bottle, and Phil gave him a scolding mew. Clint toasted the kitten and took a pull from the bottle, then put his head back, resting the hand with the beer bottle on his thigh, sighed tiredly and relaxed again.

Phil walked on another few steps, sniffed at the leather binding of a big book at the bottom of a small stack of books. He rubbed his cheek over the books and the paper strips sticking out of the pages, then lifted his head to study a glint of light in the corner.

_Shiny!_

He dashed over to the corner and sniffed at the strange object standing upright on a metal stand. A funny-shaped wooden box with a hole in it, covered with metal strings. Phil lifted a paw and slapped at the shining steel lines, then jumped backward at the horribly discordant wail they made. He sniffed the wood a little more, considered the situation, then batted more gently at the steel.

"Hey!" Clint sat upright. "Cut that out." He rose and made for the guitar, where the kitten was tugging at the thick E string with a claw. "Swear to God you got no sense of rhythm." He lifted the kitten in one hand and took the guitar by the neck with the other. "Tell you what, you behave yourself and I’ll play you something for real, all right?" Phil mewed and rubbed his lips against Clint’s fingers. He carried them both back to the sofa, set the cat down beside him, took up the guitar and played "One Man Guy," singing softly. The cat’s eyes followed the movements of his hands, mesmerized.

Phil stood on the sofa when Clint got to his feet. But the archer just put the guitar back on its stand and returned to his seat. He reached for a spiral notebook and pen on the coffee table, and in a flash the cat crossed the short distance from sofa to tabletop and sat on the notebook.

"Hey! I need that!" He gave it a short tug, and Phil hunkered down into a compact brick of fur, all four paws tucked under him. His whiskers twitched, smugly.

"I promised myself on _pain of death_ I would get the bulk of this paper written tonight," Clint growled, glaring at the kitten, then let go and reached instead for the beer bottle, sat back and took another drink with a sigh.

"I dunno. Maybe you’re right," he said glumly. "Sure as hell wasn’t getting very far when you showed up anyway. Maybe it’s a sign I should pack it in for the night." He glanced at the books, sighed again. "Or just pack it in altogether. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this college shit."

Phil tilted his head and mewed quizzically.

"Oh. Yeah. I got my GED a couple years ago, and something a friend said to me a while back made me think I should at least give the higher education thing a shot," he said, and reached out to ruffle the fur between Phil’s ears. "So I enrolled as a part time student and I’ve been crawling along at one course a semester ever since. This rate, I figure I’ll get my bachelor’s around age 80." He dropped his hands between his knees, looked down at them. "If I ever get it at all, that is."

The cat mewed, put a paw on Clint’s knee, and stepped carefully onto his lap, tail swishing steadily. Gray-blue eyes stared up at him, open wide, and he ran a hand down the curve of the cat’s spine. "Ahhh, it’s okay, cat. I’ll think about this some more tomorrow." He lifted Phil off his lap and set him down on the sofa cushion, then rose. "It’s late. Time for me to hit the sack. And for _you_ to get back home where you belong, wherever that is."

He walked to the door and held it open, waving a hand to give the cat the idea.

Phil blinked, gave an indignant meow, hopped off the couch and minced haughtily in the opposite direction and through the bedroom door, just the tip of his tail twitching.

Clint growled and shut the door. "Fine. Have it your way. I’m not getting’ up to let you out again, though."

*********

He entered the bedroom and found the cat wandering the perimeter, sniffing things and scent-marking the legs of all the furniture. Clint stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the foot of the bed, scuffed off his sneakers and unsnapped his jeans on the way into the bathroom. Phil’s head lifted, ears up straight, and dashed after him.

But he wasn’t quick enough to beat the closing of the bathroom door. The cat wailed and bumped his head hard against the door, then repeated the motion with his shoulder. Phil heard the shower turn on, and tried to work his nose into the crack between door and floor. The combination of steam and soap and friend-scent was maddeningly strong in his nostrils, and he _couldn’t get to it._ He tried working a paw under the door with no success, and finally drew back to wait, letting out the occasional hopeful moan.

Finally Clint emerged, damp-haired and drying himself off with a towel as he went. He tossed jeans and shirt in a wicker hamper, rubbed the towel over his hair, and pulled a pair of black jersey shorts from the chest of drawers and pulled them on. The towel followed the clothes into the hamper, and he turned down the bed.

Phil was on the bed and tucked up against a pillow like a shot.

"Hey! You’re on my side of the bed." Clint nudged the cat with a fist. "My side. That’s your side. Jeez, what am I saying? You don’t _have_ a side. You don’t _live here._ Your side is _down there._ " He pointed at the floor.

The cat’s eyes narrowed smugly, and he shifted his weight back against the pillow, rucking it up between his rump and the headboard.

Clint sat on the edge of the bed and eased himself under the covers. "Hoo-kay. Long’s you don’t mind getting rolled over on..."

He settled in on his side, an arm under the pillow, and closed his eyes. Pleased, Phil allowed himself to be crowded over to the other side of the bed. He stood, circled twice and dropped onto his side, stretched out along the length of Clint’s torso. Clint’s lips twitched in a half-smile and his free hand reached over to give the scruff of Phil’s neck an affectionate scratch.

*********

Sometime in the night, Clint woke to find Phil sitting heavily on his chest, almost nose-to-nose with him, yowling loudly and batting at his face with a paw.

"Whaa -" He sat up, dislodging the kitten who resettled on his lap, and found himself gasping for breath, heart hammering painfully, tangled in sweaty sheets. The coverlet and pillows were disarrayed in a way that told him he’d been thrashing around in his sleep.

Clint reached behind him and pulled the pillow to stand vertically against the headboard and leaned back, arms above his head, head tilted back to look at the ceiling. He breathed deeply until his heart rate returned to something close to normal, then lifted his head again.

"GodDAMNit," he yelled, and threw the pillow overhand across the room. Phil yowped in surprise and streaked off the bed, taking cover in the four inches of clearance under the chest of drawers.

"Oh. Hey, no. I’m sorry." He climbed out of bed, chucked the pillow back where it came from, crouched on the floor by the chest, and held out a hand to the kitten. Phil cowered back a little further into the shadows. "I wouldn’t’a hit you. Didn’t mean to scare you either. It was just a bad dream, that’s all. I get so mad that I have to deal with all this ancient _crap_ that keeps coming back on me in my sleep." He rubbed his eyes, wiped sweat from his temples, and Phil relented and crept carefully out of hiding. He put a paw on Clint’s bare foot, butted his head heavily against his knee, and Clint picked him up and carried him back to bed.

"No more nightmares, I promise," he said, giving the kitten a quick skritch under its chin. "Strictly one to a customer."

Clint straightened out the tangled sheets and shifted around until he found a comfortable position. Once he was settled, Phil again flopped down by his side and watched, tail swishing back and forth against the coverlet, until his friend was asleep again.

*********

The cat woke Clint from a dream once more during the night.

It watched him shift uneasily in his sleep, saw his breathing change into a pattern of short pants punctuated by the occasional gasp. A thin sheen of sweat coated him and put a deep musky note in his friend-scent that hadn’t been there before.

Fearing another nightmare, Phil batted at Clint’s shoulder and bicep with a paw and mewed plaintively until he responded.

" _Co’son..._ " He moaned the name softly, then sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes to narrow squinting slits. "...mwhaah?" He rubbed his eyes, propped up on one elbow, looked at the cat, then down to the protuberance tenting the sheet below his waist.

"...oh. ‘S’okay, cat. No big deal. Just..." He reached under the sheet to adjust his shorts, hissing at the slide of fabric over sensitive skin, then levered himself up and out of bed and quick-walked awkwardly to the bathroom. He swung the door shut in a fast arc, and it barely missed the nose of the cat padding silently along behind him.

Phil meowed his outrage and head-butted the door hard; this time the latch hadn’t fully caught and slipped out of place from the force of it. The cat pawed at the inch-wide opening and poured himself through the narrow gap.

Clint stood in front of the toilet, shorts around his ankles, one hand braced against the wall. His other hand gripped his hard penis and worked quickly up and down its length, soft grunts punctuating each stroke. His eyes were shut tight and teeth gritted as semen spurted in a hot arc into the bowl.

He stood there like that a few more seconds, struggling to catch his breath. The cat slinked its way around his ankles and he startled back a step, feet tangling in his shorts, and nearly fell but caught himself with one hand on the sink vanity.

"Jesus, cat!" He snagged a washcloth from the tub, wet it in the sink and set to cleaning himself up. "It’s called personal space. Ever heard of it?" He flushed the toilet, and the cat reared up on his hind legs to watch the water swirl in the bowl.

Clint laughed at the cat’s puzzled expression. Then he stopped to consider. The cat hadn’t, to the best of his knowledge, done any of its personal business since its arrival at his door, and he hadn’t provided it a litter pan. He adjusted his clothes, opened the bathroom door and beckoned the cat to follow him out.

He opened the bedroom window about three inches wide. "Compromise, cat. You need to, ahh, take care of things - or just, y’know, _go home_ \- there’s your access. Got it?" Phil hopped up on the window sill, looked out and sniffed the well-pruned boxwood shrubs below, and mewed in agreement.

"Okay then. Your call." He rolled his shoulders, stretched and felt his spine pop, and padded back to bed. A few seconds later the cat leapt down from the window and joined him.

*********

This time Clint slept on uninterrupted until the buzzing of his alarm sounded in his ear. He woke to find himself in bed alone.

"Cat?"

There was no reply, and the word echoed hollowly in the empty bungalow. Clint glanced over to the cracked-open window. He got up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went to it. There were more tiny paw prints in the dust on the sill than there had been when he cracked it, and below were signs of scat with mulch scratched over it. He opened the window wider and craned his neck to look out, sniper’s eyes alert to even the tiniest movement; but there was no kitten.

"Well, so much for that." He sighed and closed the window firmly and went into the bathroom for the morning’s routine.

A few minutes later, washed, shaved and dressed, Clint went into the kitchenette and started coffee brewing. Then he crossed to the front door and stepped out onto the stoop to retrieve the daily newspaper.

A blur of grey and black sped past him into the bungalow.

"You again?" he said to the kitten as he closed the door behind him, trying to suppress a smile, and joined him in the kitchen to pour his coffee.

The cat gave him a muffled "mrrw" in return, and leapt onto the kitchenette’s counter. Clint’s smile faded; something was off, some small movement around the cat’s mouth...

He went over to the kitten. A small green lizard was dangling by a hind leg from its mouth, writhing in futile attempts to escape. Phil dropped his prey on the counter in front of Clint and mewed proudly.

"Oh. Hey. No! You don’t wanna eat that. _I_ don’t wanna eat that. Thanks for thinkin’ of me though." The lizard made a mad break for freedom and one paw smacked down, a claw impaling its tail. The cat glared at its prey, whiskers atwitch.

"Tell you what. You let the little dude go, and I will give you the breakfast of your dreams," he offered, and dug in a cabinet to produce a 3-ounce can of tuna. "Hmm?"

Clint pulled the ring of the can’s pop-top, and Phil’s head came up, nose and whiskers twitching wildly. He released the lizard, which fled into the shadows of a corner, and stalked over to investigate the can more closely.

_Starving!_

"Oh yeah. That’s got your attention." He raised the can up out of the cat’s reach while he rummaged in another overhead cabinet; the kitten’s eyes stayed fixed on the can. Clint found a small plate, emptied the tuna can onto it, and grabbed a spoon to break up the compressed mass of fish into something more bite-sized.

Phil mewed plaintively, and Clint put the plate on the floor. "Bon appétit."

The cat leapt down and attacked the fish eagerly. Clint laughed, took a biscuit from a Ziploc bag and grabbed butter and jelly from the refrigerator. Once that minor prep work was done, he took coffee and biscuit to the kitchen’s eating nook and started reading the paper while he ate and sipped.

As he was starting on the sports section a movement caught his eye. The cat had finished its tuna and jumped back up onto the counter, where it was licking the packing oil from the can. "Hey! Careful there. Behave yourself, or it’s off to the pound with you." Clint got up, examined the can for sharp edges, and decided it was not kitten-friendly. He scooped up the can and lid and dumped them in the garbage. Phil yowled a complaint.

"Sorry, cat. Want some water?" He turned on the faucet, and the cat watched the stream as though hypnotized.

_Thirsty. Yes._

Clint dug in the cabinet again and found a small shallow Tupperware container, filled it halfway with water and set it on the floor by the plate. Phil hopped back down, sniffed at the plastic with indecision, then chose to ignore the odd chemical tinge and started lapping up water. Clint laughed and skritched the cat’s ears before turning back to the paper.

His cell phone rang, and he checked the display before picking up the call. "Barton." He listened, and his eyes sharpened. "No, not since yesterday morning, at the archery range. He said he was going home to pick up a file on his lunch break, I think."

Sensing a shift in his friend’s mood, Phil looked up from his water, ears shifting in search of signs of danger.

"Yes sir. Understood. I’ll be right over." Clint signed off, grabbed his coffee and ran out the door. The cat raced alongside him and leapt past him into the Jeep’s passenger seat while he was still settling into the driver’s side.

Clint looked at the cat. "Fine. Whatever. But you brace yourself, ‘cause I ain’t slowin’ down for nobody." He fired up the engine and gunned it, hitting 30 in a matter of seconds and accelerating from there. Phil yelped and dug his claws deep into the seat cushion for anchorage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat has nine lives: three for playing, three for straying, three for staying. _\- English Proverb_
> 
> God made the cat in order to give man the pleasure of petting the tiger. _\- Anonymous_

The front room of Agent Coulson’s bungalow was a disaster.

Clint and the cat took a few steps into the house and stopped to survey the damage. Furniture was overturned, pictures were knocked off the walls, and glass was broken into unrecognizable fragments.

The cat showed no signs of finding anything at all amiss.

_Home!_

“Signs of a struggle,” Nick Fury said, standing in the middle of the room while forensic techs worked around him. “Pretty impressive really, given how Spartan Agent Coulson keeps his quarters.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Clint’s eyes locked on to his boss’s boss. “Sir? What can I do?”

One of the forensic techs overheard and shouted, “You can get that damn cat out of here – it’s contaminating the scene!”

Clint blushed and bent down to grab the kitten, who was sniffing at a puddle of coffee by an overturned armchair. “Sorry.”

“Wait,” the tech said, and hurried over with a pair of tweezers in hand. She tweezed a bit of loose fluff from Phil’s coat and dropped it into an evidence container. “For elimination purposes. _Now_ get the damn cat out of here.”

_No! Home! Mine!_

He carried the struggling ball of fur back to the jeep, dropped Phil onto the passenger seat and slammed the door shut before he could escape. He could hear the kitten’s infuriated wails even through the glass.

“Can it, cat, you’re not gettin’ back out. You’re already getting me in trouble with the boss.”

Clint rejoined Fury inside the bungalow. “Sir?”

“What you can do,” Fury said as if they hadn’t been interrupted, “is use those hawk eyes of yours. Anything that looks wrong, anything out of place, anything odd, let me know.”

He shook his head. “Sir, I’ve never been in Coulson’s house before. For all I know it’s always like this.” Fury turned his head and gave Clint the one-eyed stare every SHIELD agent dreaded. “Okay, yeah, I know, he’s a clean freak and like an anti-hoarder, if his office is anything to go by. But my point is, I don’t know what in here’s his stuff and what might not be.”

“Oh, it’s all his stuff, Barton,” Fury replied, and released him from the Stare to look around the room again. “But every instinct I have says something in here is wrong, something’s off here, and I can’t. Place. It.” He shook his head. “So, you’re going to look around here, and you’re going to look at what the forensics people come up with. You’re going to find the pattern, and you’re going to find where the pattern breaks. And then you’re going to call me, personally.”

Clint’s stomach clenched. “Yes sir.”

*********

A quarter of an hour later, Clint got back into the jeep and found the kitten looking smug.

Phil had knocked Clint’s coffee mug out of the cup holder to spill all over the plastic cover of the emergency brake, and while he’d licked up much of the bitter black liquid, there was still a sticky residue everywhere. Clint growled in frustration.

“That’s it, cat. We’re skippin’ the pound. I’m throwin’ you to the base’s Rottweilers.”

He reached for the kitten, and Phil gave an angry screech and swatted Clint’s hand with claws out. Blood welled in the scratches, and the cat backed down onto its belly, eyes wide with sudden fear.

Clint stared at the scratches on his hand in shock, and then the anger and frustration on his face broke apart and he began to hyperventilate. His hands took up their places on the steering wheel and clenched as though hanging on for dear life.

“ohgodohGODohgodohgod,” he chanted under his breath, fighting not to sob. Phil crossed the emergency brake hutch and climbed into his lap, stood on his hind legs between Clint’s torso and the steering wheel, front paws on his chest, and mewed. 

“What’m’I gonna do, cat? I don’t know what to _do_.” He fought to catch his breath. “My friend is missing. I don’t know how to find him. And there’s blood in there, cat. Not much, okay, but still. _Blood._ If he’ hurt – if he’s -” 

A sob did break through his reserves, strangled and humiliating. Phil trilled sympathetically and rubbed his cheeks over Clint’s, nudged his nose against his friend’s, butted the top of his head under Clint’s chin. One of his hands released its death grip on the steering wheel and dropped to pet the cat’s soft fur.

“Thanks. I needed that,” he said, a little more in control of his breathing. 

“Tell you a secret, cat? I’ll deny this if you ever tell anyone else…But I don’t really have very many friends. I mean, I know a lotta people and I get along okay with most of ‘em, but not _real_ friends. You know? It’s pretty much just Fury, ‘cause he brought me in here, and Natasha, ‘cause she was my partner and you gotta love your partner way down in the deep. And Coulson, ‘cause – I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He talks to me like I’m as smart as he is, and he expects I’ll understand him. He lets me get away with saying stuff he wouldn’t take from most people, and it’s like he thinks I’m funny, the good kind of funny. He treats me like I’m _worth_ something.”

Phil mewed and licked at Clint’s chin with a rough tongue. Clint lowered his head to touch his forehead to the cat’s. “Okay, yeah. Got you too, now, I guess. But my point is, I haven’t got so many real friends I can afford to just go losin’ one of ‘em, you know? I gotta – I gotta – I don’t know what I gotta do. But I gotta get him back home. Safe. Somehow.”

He glanced down at his hand, where the scratches were scabbing over. Phil’s eyes followed, and he mewed apologetically.

“Ahhh, forget it, cat. I’m not throwin’ you to the Rotties.” He scratched Phil’s ears. “Those dogs wouldn’t stand a chance.”

*********

Clint drove them more sedately to the base’s archery range. He told the cat to stay on the locker room bench while he changed into workout gear, and for a wonder it did as it was told.

“I gotta do this anyway, every day, and besides it’ll help clear some of the worry out of my head,” he told Phil. “It’ll take the science geeks some time to finish up what they’re doing. Best to take my mind off it.”

He led the cat to a yellow line at the perimeter of the range and knelt, pushed the cat’s head down to the line. “See that? That’s your wall, there. You don’t go beyond that line. Hell, you don’t even go _near_ that line. _Sharp pointy things_ are gonna be flying around beyond that line. You got me?”

Phil meowed, head-butted Clint’s knee, and with nose and tail in the air trotted to a table against the wall which held sign-in and scoring sheets, spare targets, broken shafts and extra fletchings, flints to sharpen arrowheads and other bits of detritus. Clint’s coffee cup rested there, and the cat leapt up onto the corner of the table beside the travel mug and settled down, tail swishing.

“Good cat. Smart cat.” 

Clint entered some commands into a touchscreen panel, took up his bow and found the starting mark for a training exercise. A buzzer sounded and Clint ran, aiming and firing at the first target to drop from the ceiling. Two more sprang up from panels in the floor several yards down, and he fired one arrow after another for bulls-eyes. A moving target slid down the far wall in time with him, quickly nailed, and the next yawed in a zigzag pattern along the wall. Once that one was dispatched, he shot out five small targets that popped up like weeds in his path from the floor and a floating target much like a weather balloon. He crossed a line at the end of the range and another buzzer signaled the end of the exercise. 

He walked back toward the table where Phil sat watching, and his brow furrowed. He picked up his coffee and sipped, and considered the cat.

“I got a friend who likes to watch me shoot,” he mused. “Not every day, but when he can get clear. He’ll always lean against this table, with one hand just about where you’re sitting, and a cup of coffee in the other.”

Phil mewed and twitched his whiskers. Clint shrugged. “I dunno. Just felt…familiar, you watching me right there like that.” He gave the cat a quick pet, then set up the next exercise.

*********

Once his training session was done, Clint and the kitten drove to another building, checked in with security – who gave Phil the hairy eye, but let him in on Clint’s recognizance – and went to Clint’s desk, set in a half-cubicle in a bullpen, with the sterile look of a workspace seldom used.

Several reports from the forensic techs awaited him atop the desk. Clint pulled up his desk chair, and the kitten leapt onto the desk top to sit upon them. Clint sighed.

“C’mon. Official government documents, there,” he said, and gave Phil’s chest a poke. The cat lifted its nose in the air haughtily and moved back a few steps, as if it was all his own idea, then licked a paw and began washing his face.

Clint studied the incident scene reports, reading and re-reading, and finally set them down and rested his head in his hands as though it ached. Very little of it had made sense to him, though one thing did come through loud and clear: The small amount of blood found in the bungalow matched Agent Coulson’s records. Clint’s hands began trembling when he reached that point.

“These damn things might as well be written in Sanskrit for all the good they’re doin’ me,” he muttered. Phil stepped forward and butted the top of his head against the top of Clint’s.

“Okay, yeah, thanks,” he muttered, sitting back up. Then he picked up a stack of forms from his inbox. “Tell you what. I’ll make Coulson happy and catch up on my sitreps and in-trips. Maybe while I’m doing the drone work something’ll percolate in my subconscious.” 

The cat favored him with a cheerful meow and settled down to watch. Clint chuckled, scratched under its chin, and waded in to the stack of paperwork.

Two hours later he was down to the last three forms, and Phil was dozing atop the forensics reports.

“All right, cat, my eyes are about to fall out of my head. Whattaya say to some lunch?” The cat’s head lifted with comic speed at the sound of the last word, and Clint laughed. “Oh yeah. You know at least a few words of English, all right…” He rubbed Phil’s neck affectionately, and started to brush a bit of cat dander from his hand. 

Then he stopped, looked at the few strands of fur clinging to his hand, and then stared into middle distance. Shooed the cat off the forensics reports, and pulled out the diagram of the scene and some close-up photographs. Stared into middle distance some more, and then turned to his computer and called up a few Google searches.

Ten minutes later, he picked up his phone and dialed an interoffice extension.

“Agent Barton, calling for the Colonel…Well, how long’s…Okay. If you’ll please ask him to meet me at this morning’s incident site as soon as possible,” he told Fury’s aide. “Tell him I think I’ve found him his pattern.”

*********

Phil perched atop the overturned armchair, tail swishing, and watched Clint pace off the length of the room with the occasional detour. He was muttering under his breath, and only stopped when the door opened.

“Agent Barton. I understand you’ve got something for me.” Nick Fury strode in like a man fully expecting his demands for answers to be met.

“Yes sir.” Clint walked up to meet him. “Hold this -” he shoved an enlarged copy of the crime scene diagram into one of Fury’s hands, “- and this.” He scooped up the kitten and dropped him in Fury’s other hand, earning himself a scolding yowl.

Fury glared down at the kitten dubiously; Phil lifted his nose haughtily, then deigned to sniff at Fury’s wrist, finally rubbing his cheek against it in acceptance. “Barton, is this – creature -”

“- necessary? Yes sir. In fact I believe he’s essential.”

Fury’s eyebrows lifted. “Does it have a name?”

“Yes sir. It’s Cat.You’ll remember that the cat came in with me this morning and a tech bitched us out about it, the cat and me. That’s why the cat’s fur had to be entered into evidence and eliminated. But.”

Clint circled behind Fury to stand in the open doorway. “Cat and I walked in and we both stopped right here.” He walked to the overturned armchair and the coffee spill. “That’s maybe five, six steps in from the doorway. The only fiber transfer from the cat that can definitely be attributed to this morning is marked on that diagram as 12A.”

Fury studied the diagram. “There are more incidences of fur here,” he said. “There,” he pointed to the bookcase on the far wall, “and there.” He pointed to a spot below the window.

“Yes sir, and that’s where I believe the pattern breaks. This morning the cat did not go anywhere near those fiber transfer sites before I took him out and locked him in the car.” Clint looked at Fury, then at Phil. “I believe the cat had been in this room before this morning.”

Fury held up one finger of the hand holding the diagram. “Devil’s advocate, Agent. Cats shed, and fur flies.”

“Yes sir, it does. But this cat’s coat is short and glossy, and it doesn’t shed much unless it comes into direct contact with something. I realized that this afternoon when I petted him and got a few – a very few – strands of fur on my hand. There are a lot more on my shirt sleeve, where I’ve been carrying him. You’ll probably see a bit of loose fur on the cuff of your sleeve there, sir. But his coat’s not very fluffy, and his fur doesn’t just spontaneously fly.” 

He crossed the room to the bookcase. “If that cat’s fur was found here, and there,” he pointed to the spot beneath the window, “and it has been confirmed that the fur found here is from that cat, then the cat had to have been in physical contact with these spots.”

“And that can’t be accounted for by this morning’s intrusion, by your reasoning,” Fury said.

“Right.” Clint walked back to join Fury near the doorway. “Here’s how I reconstruct what happened. Coulson comes home on his lunch break to get that file. He stops about here where we’re standing, judging by the position of his briefcase, and surprises an intruder – already in the middle of the room, I think. If he followed protocol, Coulson would have identified himself, drawn down, and ordered the intruder to stop whatever he was doing.”

“Only one, you think?” Fury said in an undertone, to avoid disrupting the flow of Clint’s thoughts.

“I think we’d see a lot more destruction here if there were more than one,” he said. “A physical struggle ensued, starting here,” he walked to the overturned chair, end table and coffee cup, “progressing to here,” he took a few more steps to the broken coffee table, “and here, where I think Coulson took cover behind the sofa, which was destroyed by – I don’t know what, some kind of energy blast. 

“My guess is that Coulson was then picked up bodily and thrown with considerable force into the bookcase.” He walked over to the damaged shelves. “The impact broke this picture frame, and the jagged metal and glass are what I think caused the bleeding.” He stared hard at the broken frame and added, “Yes. There are at least two shards of glass missing.” He took a deep breath and shook that mental image away.

“Coulson would have then fallen to the floor, probably on hands and knees, if not naturally then in an attempt to rise. Quick and dirty measurements from the height of impact tell me he most likely landed here.” A few steps took Clint to another marker. “This is also the first site at which a small amount of cat fur makes an appearance. There is no blood trail, only these few drops by the shelves. In fact, all signs of Agent Coulson’s physical presence just stop at this point. Maybe he went out the window, but there are no footprints or any other evidence outside to support that. Maybe the intruder carried him out of here bodily; but then we should have some clear shoe imprints in the carpet from the weight of both bodies, and we don’t.”

Clint walked to the window. “In fact, the only other forensic oddity between here and the doorway is this patch of fur beneath the window. It’s got a lot more fur transfer than the site by the bookcase, which suggests to me that the cat spent some time in this spot; I don’t know why.”

As if in answer, Phil meowed, stood and stretched on its perch in Fury’s large hand, leapt to the floor and trotted over to Clint. He nudged aside the plastic cone marking the spot, turned in a tight circle twice, and lay down. He stretched out to full length, extending all twenty toes, then drew back into a ball and settled down to nap in the afternoon sun.

Clint stared down at the kitten and smiled. “And there you go.”

“You think the cat _is_ Agent Coulson,” Fury concluded.

“Transformed somehow.” He nodded. “You think it sounds crazy. I think it sounds crazy. Find me another theory that fits the physical evidence and I’ll drop it like a rock.”

“Any other support for your theory?” The corner of Fury’s mouth twitched.

Clint nodded. “I spent a little time reading up on feline behavior. When I let this little guy into my place last night, the first thing he did was get on the arm of the sofa and knead his paws on it. When I sat down, he rubbed his face and the top of his head on me. When he went exploring the next room, he rubbed his sides against the legs of all the furniture and at intervals along the baseboards and walls. This is called scent marking; cats do it to mark their territory, warn other cats off with their personal scent. When the cat came in here this morning, he made no effort to mark anything. That little table there, and the coat rack, those are within even the small range of movement he had before I locked him out, but he didn’t go near anything but the coffee spill.” Clint took a deep breath. “I think it’s because his scent is already marking this room – that it’s all over everything in here, in fact. I don’t know of any human with a sense of smell that could confirm that, but…”

“But it fits.” Fury took out his cell phone and scrolled through the numbers saved in it, engaged one. “Mr. Wong? Is the doctor in residence at the moment? Ah. Good. …Yes, I understand. He’s a busy man. But if you’d please let him know that SHIELD is in need of a house call…”

*********

Fury uprighted the overturned armchair and settled down in it. Clint sat on the floor next to the kitten, and gave it an occasional pet, more to reassure himself than Phil.

They waited there an hour before a visitor entered. Clint looked up at the man and suppressed a snicker. Even the ersatz Gypsy fortune tellers he’d known in the circus hadn’t dared go for this level of wardrobe schmaltz. The man wore black boots and tights, a billowy blue silk tunic belted with an orange sash that matched his long orange gloves, and a red cloak with a high collar and a gaudy gold amulet holding it closed at the throat. His black hair was slicked back, the better to show off the white streaks at his temples, and his mouth and chin sported a split goatee and a really bitchin’ fu Manchu ‘stache.

“[Dr. Strange](http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/dr_strange.jpg).” Fury stood to greet the new arrival, a hand outstretched. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Always a pleasure to serve my country, Colonel,” Strange said silkily. “I’m sure you will return the favor by continuing to allow me a certain latitude in my…business.”

“We’re here anytime you need us, as long as you’re here anytime we need you,” Fury replied. “Such as now. Meet Agent Barton,” he gestured to Clint, who rose and stood at attention, “and Cat.” 

Strange raised an eyebrow at the kitten and turned back to Fury.

“We have reason to suspect that the cat may not be exactly what it appears to be,” Fury said. “We have no way of confirming that suspicion. We were hoping you might.”

“I might indeed.” Strange crossed the room and knelt by the cat. He put out a hand and let Phil sniff it, then petted its head and shoulders and crooned softly, lulling Phil into a half-sleeping state.

Then the gold brooch at the neck of Strange’s cloak split in the middle and a layer of gold slid back to reveal a glowing human eye. Startled, Clint fell back a step and reached for his Glock; a gesture from Fury stilled him. The glow from the eye brightened and fell in a narrow beam on the kitten, which dozed peacefully through the inspection.

“That cat is definitely not in its natural form, though the Eye of Agamotto could tell me no more than that it is a man, transmogrified by magic,” Dr. Strange said.

Clint and Fury looked at each other. “If you can change it back to its proper form, we can take it from there, whoever it really is,” Fury said.

The doctor nodded. He lifted his hands and uttered what sounded to Clint like nonsense rhymes. No visible energy appeared, but Clint felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end.

Phil yowled and began to struggle, and again Clint started to make a move only to be checked by Fury. The kitten’s limbs and form began to ripple and take on greater substance, and he wailed pitifully.

“You didn’t tell us it was gonna hurt him!” Clint blurted.

“Anytime a transfiguration such as this adds mass, there is bound to be pain,” Strange said without breaking his concentration. “This is not so with the loss of mass. I should think the initial transformation was quite painless.”

The cat’s form was flowing into the familiar shape of a human male, and Clint knelt to watch as familiar black boots and dark suit trousers formed over its lower torso. A white dress shirt and tie formed on the upper torso, and shards of glass were ground into a bloody patch over one shoulder.

The head and face took their true forms last.

“Coulson,” Clint breathed.

Strange looked over to Fury, who nodded. “That’s who we were expecting, yes.”

On the floor, Coulson’s breathing stuttered, and he began to cough and convulse.

“Shock,” Strange said, and rushed to Coulson’s side. He shifted Phil’s head gently over one shoulder, opened his mouth and put two fingers in to clear the airway. A moment later, Coulson vomited over his shoulder.

“Not unexpected,” Strange told Clint, not without gentleness, and Clint wondered what his face must look like to prompt that small kindness.

Fury snapped his cell phone shut. “Medical’s on the way. Barton, you’re to go with him in transport, stand guard.” He crossed the room, knelt down. “Phil? Can you tell us what happened?”

“…Loki,” Coulson managed, then dropped into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat has nine lives: three for playing, three for straying, three for staying. _\- English Proverb_
> 
> I suspect that many an ailurophobe hates cats only because he feels they are better people than he is - more honest, more secure, more loved, more whatever he is not. _-Winifred Carriere_
> 
> Some get an itchin' for a critter they been scratchin'. _-Rowlf the Dog, "I Hope that Something Better Comes Along," lyrics by Paul Williams & Kenny Ascher_

Clint followed Coulson into the back of an ambulance, and listened to the EMTs rattle off his vitals. He sat back out of their way, and wished he could take his friend’s hand.

Coulson was stable by the time they reached SHIELD’s medical facility. When they had him in an examination cubicle, he opened his eyes and lifted his head.

“Barton?”

“Here, boss.” Clint called from the doorway. “Fury told me to stand guard.”

“Thought I heard that,” he replied, voice thin. “How long was I -”

“About a day and a half, give or take.” Clint looked away.

“I should probably say something. I don’t know.” He tried to shrug and winced. “Thank you? I’m sorry?”

“Hey. What’s to be sorry for? It’s not like you saw me naked or something.” Clint’s jaw set. “Oh. Wait.”

“You’re angry with me.” 

“Yes. No. _Yes._ ” He winced. “I mean, I’m not angry exactly. Not at you, anyway. Embarrassed. About the whole – situation.”

“Fair enough,” Coulson said, and watched Clint step aside to let a doctor into the cubicle.

*********

The doctor had Coulson turn onto his side and took down the top of his exam gown, and began picking glass slivers out of the wound on his shoulder. Clint watched the procedure with an appalled fascination.

“Jeez, Coulson. Your back’s like one enormous bruise,” he said, eyeing the discoloration over his friend’s shoulders.

“You got it right, I hit the bookshelves at speed,” Coulson replied.

“I’m a bit concerned about those welts on top of the bruise,” the doctor said as he stitched up the shoulder wound.

“You’re new here, aren’t you, Doc?” When the doctor nodded, Coulson sighed. “The welts are old. You’ll find ‘em on my charts under scars and identifying marks. They’re usually pretty faint, they probably just stand out with the bruising under them.”

“Can you give me a read on the pain levels from this, on the 0 to 5 scale?” the doctor asked.

He hesitated. “I’ve developed a high tolerance for pain. It makes it hard to gauge,” he said finally. “It’s not so bad I can’t ignore it.”

Clint’s focus sharpened, and he studied the welts – thin white ridges striping the middle of Coulson’s shoulders. “Leather belt?”

“It’s a classic for a reason,” Coulson said with a nod.

“Pretty skinny belt,” Clint observed.

“Woman’s belt.”

Clint winced. “Sorry.” Coulson just shrugged, and Clint strove for a lighter tone. “You musta been a pretty bad little kid, from the looks of it.”

He shrugged again. “If you define ‘bad’ as ‘being there,’ sure. Hard habit for a four-year-old to break.”

“…I can shut up now, if you’d rather.”

“No, it’s okay. Painkillers always make me gabby.” Coulson looked over his shoulder at Clint. “There _was_ a bright side. It helped me develop the first two tenets of my personal philosophy.”

Clint smiled. “Which are?”

“One, always be very quiet. This is SOP when dealing with a crazy person. _Ow._ ”

“Sorry,” the doctor said. “Had to yank on that to get the sutures secured. Almost done.”

“So what’s point two?” Clint asked, to distract him from the suturing.

“Hmm?” He turned his head away from the doctor to focus on Clint again.

“Your personal philosophy.”

“Oh. Yeah. Two. Always assume everyone is a crazy person. That’s also SOP, unless they’re conclusively proven safe and sane – what I call the Grandparent Exception. Good people, my grandparents. Solid as they come. Wish you could meet ‘em.”

“Sorry, man. If you want I can forget I ever saw that.” He gestured toward the scars on his friend’s back.

Coulson shook his head. “No big deal, anymore. Just – ancient crap.”

Anger flashed briefly through Clint’s eyes, and then his face shuttered over into cool professionalism. He came to attention as Fury walked into the room.

“Agent Coulson?”

“Sir.” Coulson cleared his throat. “Quick sitrep. Some weeks ago I was talking with Thor about how Asgardians mix magic and technology. He brought me back a book from Asgard to look at, which I was deciphering very slowly with a dictionary of Old Norse. Loki teleported into my house to take that book – and did, as best I can recall. It gets a little blurry at the end there. As to the rest, Agent Barton had the details of the fight essentially correct, and I was with him for the duration of the time I was a cat. He can debrief you there better than I can.”

“Thank you, Agent. The situation is being dealt with. I’m sending Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Hulk to deal with Loki, keeping Black Widow and Iron Man in reserve. You will be under 24-hour guard until this matter is resolved.”

Coulson started to sit up, winced. “Due respect, sir, but Loki didn’t target me specifically. He only assaulted me because I caught him in the act. I doubt he’ll come back for me.”

Fury’s eye regarded him coolly. “I wasn’t aware you had such insight that you can predict the game plan of a God of Mischief, Agent Coulson.”

“…oh. No. No sir.” He settled back down on the table. “A bodyguard’s probably a good idea, now you put it like that.”

Clint snorted, and was met with the Stare. “You. Report to Hangar D immediately. Deployment’s in one hour.”

“Sir. Yes sir. Live to serve, Bosses.” He sketched a mocking salute at Coulson and Fury and left.

Fury sighed and ran a hand over the good side of his face. “That boy…”

“He’s seriously pissed off, sir,” Coulson interjected. “Mostly at me. Giving him a job to do, away from here, is probably the best thing for him right now.” He winced. “Wish I had one.”

*********

Fury returned to Coulson’s bungalow late the next afternoon. The guard opened the door, and he found the front room cleared of all furniture except the bookcases, and Coulson curled up on the floor in the sunbeam by the window.

“Taking an afternoon nap, Agent?”

Coulson scrambled into a slightly more dignified sitting position. “Taking a break from working, sir. I spent the morning getting the broken crap out of the room, and I just ran the Roomba,” he waved a hand at the little robot vacuum, “and once I get my second wind I’ll have the Scooba give the floor a good washing down.”

Fury smiled. “Bet you’d’ve loved to have those toys when you were a kid.”

“Mom would’ve sold ‘em for drug money,” Coulson said wryly. “But yeah, we can add them to the list of impossible things that would’ve made my life easier back then.”

“I just stopped by to update you. The Avengers are back from kicking Loki’s ass. Still not sure what exactly he was up to, but it seems to have more to do with pulling a prank on Thor than anything earth-shattering. Hawkeye called him out on ‘attacking Coulson’ as he put it, and Loki said in his defense he hadn’t actually _hurt_ you. I don’t think Barton was buying it, though.”

“It’s true enough. Worst that’s come out of the whole mess is that now I’ll have to _shop._ I hate to shop. I was just lying here wondering, can I really, really not live without a TV?” He sighed. “No injuries?”

“None. Barton asked for and was given the rest of the day at liberty, to make up for working through the night. Said he had ‘shit to take care of at home,’” Fury said. “I don’t even think I want to know.”

Coulson fought back a smile. “No, sir. You really don’t.”

*********

The next morning, Hawkeye completed the first round of his training session and walked off the floor to find Coulson in his usual place, leaning against the table with coffee in hand, suit impeccable.

“Nice work there,” he said, and passed Clint a towel. “I hear you had fun with mischief gods yesterday.”

“Thanks, and yeah, it was a blast,” Clint said wryly. “You’re up and around mighty soon. Couldn’t stay away?”

“I got bored. Say what you will, hanging around with you Avengers types is never boring.” He lifted his coffee in salute.

“Yeah, right. That’s why you followed me around all night and all day when you were a cat?”

Coulson shrugged. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”

“Do better.” Clint threw the towel back on the table with a touch more force than was necessary.

“Yep. You’re still pissed.”

“What did you expect? I let you in my _house_. You know things about me now I would never willingly let anybody else in on – including some I’d never willingly let _you personally_ know. Why shouldn’t I be pissed off?”

“C’mon. What’d I see that I couldn’t’ve guessed anyhow? That you’re smarter than you pretend? That you’re not as confident as you act? That you’ve got ambitions?” Coulson shook his head and set his coffee down. “Point four of my personal philosophy. The harder you try to conceal something, the more obvious it is to everybody around you.” He tugged at his shirt cuffs.

“What was that? Rubbing it in that you’re better dressed than me?”

“What?...oh.” He looked down at his arms. “No, it’s just, long sleeves are part of how I realized point four. I always wore long sleeve shirts when I was a kid – yeah, I was _that_ kid, the one that dressed like the school had uniforms even though it didn’t – and it worked fine at school. But then I’d go to my grandparents in the summer, July and August when it’s like 110 degrees, and I’m in long sleeve oxfords. I might as well have had a neon sign flashing ‘HIDING SOMETHING UNDER HERE.’”

“Hiding what?”

“Wha –oh. The cigarette burns. Of course.”

“You’re kidding,” Clint said, floored.

“Huh? No, of course I’m not kidding, why would I even -” He took off his suit jacket, unbuttoned the cuff of one shirt sleeve and pushed it up to his elbow. “They’re faint now, but I think there’s enough light in here to see them.” He lifted his arm.

Clint took Coulson’s wrist in one hand and with the other traced lines through the constellation of faint round white scars atop his forearm. “These? Yeah. I see ‘em.”

Clint’s hands were warm, and Coulson felt his mind shift into focus on the sensation in much the same way it did when shooting practice targets.

“Why’re you telling me all this?” Clint asked, voice rough.

“Because I -” Coulson looked down, shook his head to clear it. “Because I think you’ve got this image of me in your head that puts distance between us. That I grew up privileged and – sheltered from the kind of problems you had growing up. That I’d be – shocked or, or disgusted, if I saw you clearly. And it’s just wrong. I didn’t have the adult responsibilities you took on way too young, but I had my own version of them. I don’t know what exactly your life was like after your parents died and you ran away, but I know what mine was like, and what I know of yours – resonates.”

“So this is like what, you show me yours so I’ll show you mine? Bullshit. That’s just bullshit.” Clint dropped Coulson’s arm and stalked off.

*********

Two hours later, Coulson was in his office, trying to get a handle on three days’ accumulation of paperwork. Clint walked in and slapped a file down on his desk.

“Sitrep on the Loki mission,” he said, and turned to go.

“Thank you. Do I also have you to thank for this?” Clint turned back to find Coulson holding up a [plush toy kitten](http://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Plush-Flopsie-Angus-Cat/dp/B00322XUTG/ref=sr_1_75?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1321599352&sr=1-75).

“No sir.” He shrugged. “For one thing, if I’d done it I’d’a gotten one that looked a lot more like you. Cat-you, I mean.”

Coulson sighed. “Good to know the SHIELD grapevine is working at capacity, then.” He started to drop the stuffed cat in his wastebasket, and was checked by a shocked noise from Clint. He put the cat back on the desk and looked up, eyebrows raised.

“…Um. If you don’t want that, can, ahh, can I have it?” Clint fidgeted awkwardly. “I mean, if you’re just going to throw it away anyway…”

“It might as well go to a good home,” Coulson finished, and pitched the toy overhand in Clint’s direction. Clint caught it one-handed. “It can keep you company while you study. How’d the paper go?”

Clint’s expression darkened. “None of your damn business,” he snapped, then shook his head. “Sorry. Thanks for the cat,” he added as he darted out the door.

*********

That evening, Coulson sat alone in the base’s commissary, reading reports while he dined on a salad. Clint came in, grabbed a beer and a sandwich, and came over to Coulson’s table.

“Hey. I just -” He stopped when his eye fell on Coulson’s dinner plate. “Tuna salad? Is that some kind of a joke?”

Coulson looked down at the plate, then back up. “If it is, it’s really not on you particularly, you know. I kind of think I ate a mouse.”

Clint’s eyebrows rose. “…how was it?”

“Crunchy. Could’ve used ketchup.” He shrugged. “Salade Nicoise is better. Not as good as the tuna straight from the can was, but…let’s just say I never had a proper appreciation for tuna before that morning. You wouldn’t believe how much keener a cat’s senses of smell and taste are than ours.”

“Guess not.” Clint looked away, opened his beer and drank. “I just, ahh. Owe you an apology. For this morning.”

“You gave me one already.”

“Yeah, that was for snapping at you in the first place,” he said. “This one’s for the content. I finished my paper after we got back yesterday. Turned it in last night. Don’t know how it’s gonna go over.”

“Doesn’t matter. I stepped over a line, you pushed me back. It happens.” Coulson kept eating.

“No, I mean – cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. You should – I should be able to let you ask about it.” He turned the beer bottle around in his hands. “It’s just – I kinda think I’m gonna blow it, and I really didn’t want to have an audience when that happens.”

“One bad paper’s not going to -” Clint cut him off with a raised hand.

“Not the paper.” He drank, nervously. “The whole thing. College.”

“Do your grades so far reflect that?” Clint shook his head. “Then why borrow trouble?”

“’Cause I don’t know what I’m doing there,” he answered. “Besides, the whole thing’s really your fault anyways.”

“ _My_ fault?!”

“Yeah. One day about a year ago? I was looking at your degrees on your office wall, and you said something about how it all seemed like life or death when you were in college and you wished you’d known then how little of it you’d actually end up using, so you could’ve just enjoyed what you were learning. It made me think…” He shrugged and unwrapped his sandwich.

“I remember you looking at my diploma. I don’t remember what exactly I said.” He took a nervous sip of water. “I…have this tendency to babble when you’re around.”

“No you don’t. I mean, maybe it feels like babble, but it doesn’t sound like it. Usually it’s interesting.”

“Thanks.” Coulson looked down at his salad. “As for college, if you ever want some help -”

“ _No._ ” Clint stood abruptly. “Aggh. Sorry. No. Just, I gotta do this thing by myself. If I get you, or get anybody, to help it’ll feel like cheating.” He gathered his sandwich and beer. “I don’t cheat.”

“No, you don’t,” Coulson said to his retreating back.

*********

Coulson started the next day with his mandatory session with the division’s psychiatrist.

“How’s your week been going?” Dr. Eidson asked.

“The usual. Reports, paperwork. Fought a Norse god. Got turned into a cat.” He shrugged.

“Oh, is _that_ all.” The older woman smiled. “Care to tell me how you feel about that?”

“Not really.” Coulson put his briefcase beside him on the couch and opened it.

“I had a feeling you’d say that,” she said, and turned back to her computer. “You know, I almost feel guilty filing the insurance claims for these sessions of ours? _Almost._ ”

“I know what you mean.” He took out a set of files and a pen. “On the bright side, we both get so much real work done during these hours, don’t we?”

They smiled at each other over the old familiar joke, and set to ignoring each other for the next fifty-five minutes.

*********

“Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit dammit.” Clint leaned heavily on Natasha’s shoulder and limped off the sparring mat.

“Don’t even think about it, comrade,” she replied. “It’s off to Medical for you.”

“Dammit, Tasha, it’s just a bum ankle. Toss an ace bandage and a bag of ice on it and I’m good as new. Medical’s gonna make me take downtime I don’t need. I’ve worked through worse injuries, you know that.”

“Yes I do,” she said sweetly. “Which is exactly why I’m walking you to Medical. I want you in tip-top shape before the next time I kick your ass.”

*********

Coulson fidgeted impatiently through his fourth deadly dull debriefing of the day. He drummed his fingers on the desk top. He tapped a foot. He barely gave his agents time to answer before snapping out the next question.

When the debrief was done, Fury stepped into the room.

“You’re on a short fuse,” he said, studying the deep shadows under his friend’s eyes.

“My behavior was well within SHIELD regs,” Coulson answered.

“Wasn’t well within your own internal regs,” argued Fury. “Your cover’s slipping, Agent.”

“I have no idea what you mean, sir.” He gathered up his files and dumped them unceremoniously in his briefcase.

“Don’t pull that with me, Phil. I’ve been watching you build up your cover since you were -” Fury held a hand at knee-level.

Coulson gave him a baleful look. “So I’m having an off day. Happens to the best of us.”

“I’ll tell you what the General would tell you, son: You’re back at work too soon. You got things to get right within yourself, and you won’t be much good to anyone ‘til you do. Yourself least of all.”

“That’s low, Colonel. Throwing my grandfather in my face.” Coulson closed the briefcase with a snap.

“Whatever it takes, Agent.” Fury sighed and put a hand on Coulson’s shoulder. “Something else your grandfather would’ve done, without hesitation: You’re back on medical leave for the next three days. I don’t want to see your face back here until that time.”

Coulson’s eyes narrowed and his mouth opened. Then he shut it firmly and straightened.

“Yes sir. _Thank_ you very much, sir.”

He slammed the door on his way out.

*********

Coulson spent most of the following day shopping for furniture, which did nothing for his foul mood.

Clint limped his way through household chores, grocery shopping and other errands, and wound the day up with his social sciences class. Throughout the day he caught himself glancing back over his shoulder and down, as if expecting someone was following in his shadow.

*********

It was after midnight and Clint was twisting restlessly in a vain search for a comfortable position in bed. Movement caught his eye through the bedroom window. A flash of something pale in the moonlight drifting by, something familiar.

Clint jumped out of bed and rushed to the front door as quickly as his wrapped ankle would allow, still clad in only his shorts. He rounded his front walk to the sidewalk and intercepted Coulson, who shuffled along barefoot in a white t-shirt and plaid flannel pajama bottoms.

“Phil? What’re you doing out here?”

His friend shrugged, staring with hollow eyes at nothing. “I can’t sleep. I can’t _sleep._ I haven’t really slept since…” He made a vague rolling gesture with his hands.

“C’mon. Let’s get you inside.” He led Coulson in and closed the door behind them. He got Coulson settled in the dining nook and hobbled to the refrigerator. “D’you really not drink beer, or was that just a cat thing? …Aha. Let’s try this.” He pulled a bottle of red wine from the back of the fridge, and after a moment’s digging in the cabinets, poured it into two jelly jar glasses etched with cartoon characters. 

Coulson took a sip of the wine and shuddered. “That is pretty raw stuff.”

“Got it to cook spaghetti sauce with,” Clint said. “Think of it as medicine. Drink enough of it and maybe it’ll knock you out.”

Coulson stood, prowled around the small kitchen. “It’s not just that I can’t sleep. It’s – I can’t get used to being human again,” he explained. “I hate not being able to smell things properly and I keep wanting to go after prey and I can’t figure out how people express emotions when they don’t have _tails._ ”

“Have you talked with the doctors about this?”

He laughed. “Oh yeah. I’m going to tell them I wish I was still a kitten. I’m really going to tell them I miss seeing in the dark and hearing every tiny sound for miles.” He paced some more. “I’m not about to tell them I miss everything being simple and clear in my head and I miss being free to just _play_ , and oh God I am absolutely not going to tell them how much I miss you petting me. Touching me.”

Clint looked up from his glass, and Coulson blanched. “And that’s not a thing that you’re interested in repeating, now that I don’t have the power of cute for a draw. I get it. It’s okay. I shouldn’t’ve…” He put his glass down and moved toward the doorway.

“Phil. Wait.” Clint stood, got in his path and caught him. He stepped in close, hands under the other man’s elbows, and leaned in to whisper hot and urgently in his ear. A red flush crept up Coulson’s neck and ears as he listened.

“ _That’s_ what you were dreaming, that night?” he asked, voice low. Clint drew back and nodded. 

“About _me_?” Another nod, and a similar flush pinked Clint’s cheeks. “Okay. Okay. I can see it maybe being just a one-off, the subconscious does funny things -”

Clint cut him off with a raised hand, shook his head. “Couple nights a week, every week, for – God, I can’t even remember how long it’s been, now. Maybe more than a couple nights if I’d been spending a lot of time with you on a mission or something.”

Coulson picked up his glass again and took a long, shaky swallow. “Wow. We’re going to have to reevaluate you for undercover work. You sure hid the hell out of _that_ one.”

“I didn’t think you – looked at me that way. Could ever want me that way.” His eyes were downcast. “And I – admire you, and respect you, and I like being around you. So much.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I wasn’t gonna risk losing that on what I was pretty sure was a non-starter.”

Coulson took a step closer, rested his head on Clint’s shoulder, buried his nose in the junction of neck and trapezius muscle, and breathed deep. “Oh yeah. That scent, that’s what I missed. It was everywhere when I was here as a cat. It made me feel warm all over. Happy.” He nuzzled at Clint’s neck with lips and the tip of his tongue. “I knew I was safe with you. Your scent, voice, posture, a hundred tiny subliminal cues people-senses miss, they all told me you were safe. Good. Solid. You got in on the Grandparent Exception without even trying.”

Clint chuckled, and ducked his head to brush his lips over Coulson’s. Then took his mouth in a deeper kiss.

Coulson initiated the second kiss, and Clint’s hands roamed lightly down his back and under the hem of his t-shirt. “Your back -”

“Is much better,” he mumbled against the side of Clint’s neck. “Swelling’s almost gone. Your ankle?”

“’S’ nothin’. Tasha ratted me out to Medical, they always make a bigger fuss’n they should.” He pushed Coulson’s shirt up to his underarms, took a step back to pull it off. “Oh.” He ran his hands over Phil’s shoulders, down his chest, and made him shiver and reach for Clint’s waist, tug him a few steps out of the kitchen toward the bedroom.

*********

They lay naked together on the bed, kissing and exploring, for what seemed like an eternity. Coulson felt the need become more urgent first, and he took control, shifting Clint onto his back and moving over him. Both men were breathing hard and fully aroused.

“Condoms,” Phil whispered in Clint’s ear. “Lube.” Clint flung an arm to one side and groped for a nightstand drawer. Phil lifted up away from Clint’s body, earning him a moan of disappointment, and rummaged in the drawer for supplies. 

He drew back on his haunches and rolled the condom on, then settled back down over Clint, finding and working over his most sensitive spots with hands and mouth. Once he’d made his way to Clint’s groin, he edged his legs apart and settled between them. He took the bottle of lube in hand and looked up to Clint’s face.

“You sure? We’re crossing a point of no return here.”

Clint smiled. “Passed that back in the kitchen.”

Coulson returned the smile and slicked up his hands. One reached out to pull and squeeze at Clint’s erection, earning him a hiss of indrawn breath; the other slipped under the scrotum and prepped him with first one finger, then a second, moving inside him in time with the other hand’s strokes.

Clint moaned and twisted in frustration. “More – I need – Please, I can take more -”

“I’ve got more for you,” Phil answered, and removed his fingers and pushed his cock slowly inside. He rocked into Clint with a slow, easy rhythm that had the younger man purring with pleasure. 

“This is the best dream,” he mumbled vaguely, eyes glassy and distant.

“ _Clint._ ” Nettled, Phil shifted the angle of their hips so that Clint’s prostate took the brunt of each thrust; Clint cried out from the pain/pleasure of the first impact, then bucked up into the next. “ _This_ is real.”

Their pace accelerated, and the heat rose higher and higher until neither could take it any longer. Phil’s hand quickened its pace on Clint’s cock and brought him to climax; his spasms triggered Phil’s orgasm, and he dropped shakily down to rest atop his lover.

*********

“Tell you something embarrassing?” Clint asked sometime later, as they relaxed in the afterglow.

“Jesus. We’re not passed ‘embarrassing’ _yet_?” Clint laughed and ducked his head.

“I miss the cat.” Coulson’s eyebrows raised. “I mean, I’m so happy to have the real you back you wouldn’t believe – especially after tonight. But…I miss having the little fuzzball following me around all the time. He made me feel – I don’t know – like someone was watching over me.”

“Someone was,” Phil murmured, stroking Clint’s hair.

“I even went down to the animal shelter today and had a look around the cat room -”

Phil’s look of dismay was comical. “You’ve been seeing other cats?!”

“No! I mean -” Clint kissed him softly. “I tried to. Hung out a while talking to the cats there, held a couple. But it wasn’t the same. With them I didn’t feel like I felt when I was with Cat. I didn’t feel – loved – the same way.”

“I should certainly hope not.” Coulson’s arms tightened around him. “No reason you can’t have a pet here, you know.”

Clint shook his head. “I’m away too much. Couldn’t take proper care of it, couldn’t take it with me on missions and such.”

“Not without help. Some of us don’t go racing into action as much as you do these days,” Phil pointed out. “I could help with the day-to-day for short-term absences, and there’s always kennels for long-term.”

“I’ll think about it,” Clint said, and kissed him gently. “Still wouldn’t be the same, though.”

*********

Both men slept, more soundly than they had in days. Clint woke alone in bed to the smell of fresh coffee brewing. He stumbled out to the kitchen and found Phil already drinking a cup. “Timezit?”

“8:30. I really, _really_ don’t want to go -”

“Then don’t.” Clint wound his arms around Phil’s waist and nuzzled at his neck and jaw, working up to nibble his earlobe.

“- except that I’ve got furniture being delivered this morning, and I need to be there to let them in.” He turned his head to steal a kiss. “Come with me?”

Clint sighed. “So much for bed rest. Gimme 10 to get dressed and I’ll drive us. Kinda looking forward to it, now I think about it.”

“Trust me, my taste in furniture is not that exciting.”

“Not the furniture.” He gave Phil a deep, searching kiss. “My turn, in your bed.”

*********

Phil had a travel mug of coffee ready for Clint when he emerged in fresh clothes (“Promise not to spill this one,” he said ruefully, and made Clint smile), and they headed to Coulson’s bungalow, arriving a half-hour ahead of the delivery truck. Clint took his coffee into the bedroom and waited while Coulson supervised the delivery men in the setup.

Once the heavy lifting was done, he went into the bedroom and found Clint staring at a piece of framed art on one wall. “Is that…?”

He sat down beside Clint on the bed. “Yep. A genuine World War II USO revue poster, starring Captain America. The General saved one as a keepsake.”

“The General?”

“My grandfather. He served on the German front, was a colonel during the war. Retired after Korea as a general.”

Clint nodded and looked at the poster again. “Does Cap know about this?”

“Erm. No. No he doesn’t.” The discomfort in Coulson’s voice made Clint look back at him again. “Please don’t tell him. It just leads from me having it to the General giving it to me to him using Captain America as a sort of parable for me when I was growing up and being bullied – about the little guy with the heart of a lion, the one who stood up no matter how many times he got knocked down. I never could break Principle One enough to show deterrent aggression, but he taught me to fight. He turned me into a wolf in stalking lamb’s clothing.” Coulson blushed. “Please, promise me you won’t tell Capt. Rogers.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Not even for payback? For the whole cat thing?” he asked, and Clint shrugged.

“I don’t want – payback – not exactly. Not from you, anyway.” He answered the question on Coulson’s face before he could ask. “I don’t know from who, if not you. Fate maybe.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember ever hearing or reading about a Gen. Coulson.”

“Oh, no, Mom went by Coulson. Claimed she married my father, though I’m not sure about that. I went to my grandparents after she died, but she named me for them, and Phillips Phillips just sounds ridiculous. Or Phil Phillips, even.”

Whoa, whoa. Wait. Your grandfather’s General Phillips?” Coulson nodded. “General _Chester_ Phillips? Like, one of the founders of SHIELD Gen. Phillips?”

Coulson nodded again. “Also one of the leaders on the Super-Soldier Project. So you see where it could get embarrassing if Capt. Rogers found out…” he gestured toward the poster.

“Yeah. Yeah, I see that.” He shifted around, swung a leg over Coulson’s to straddle his lap, and kissed him hard and hot. “You’ll just have to make it worth my while to keep quiet.”

Coulson grinned and lay back on the bed, pulling Clint down with him.


End file.
